Ian Burge

Legislation Doing Nothing to Prevent

The Danger of Toxic Waste

(January 1978)

From Militant, No. 388, 13 January 1978, p. 4.
Transcribed by Iain Dalton.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).

We are by now familiar with the type of disasters that can cause
massive pollution: the mix-up between two types of bag which led to
the wholesale slaughter of thousands of animals, and the possibility
of permanent damage through poisoning of all 9 million inhabitants of
Michigan; the explosion at a factory in Seveso, releasing poisonous
fall-out which caused horrible skin sores and as yet unmeasured
effects on the unborn; mercury poisoning of the sea from industrial
effluent leading to a hideous disease of the nervous system and many
deaths; massive oil pollution of the seas and coastlines following
incidents with oil takers ... and so on.

Dumping

There is, however, another type of hazard which has as much
disaster potential, but which has not received a great deal of
attention: toxic wastes disposal.

The dumping of toxic wastes has caused some deaths and injuries
already. These are known about, but there may well have been other
linked indirectly. It can only be a matter of time before a disaster occurs.

There are no official statistics specific to waste disposal and it
is difficult to get a picture of the true extent of the dangers, but
it has been estimated that between three and five million tonnes of
toxic wastes are produced annually by British industry. Dumping on
the land is the preferred technique for about 90% of UK toxic wastes,
mainly because it is considerably cheaper than either chemical
treatment or incineration.

Last year, the GLC produced a special report setting out details
of ten major schemes bought for £27.6 million on which some form of
industrial pollution had been found leading to the delay of housing
schemes. These included, for instance, land at Thamesmead,
contaminated with lead, copper, mercury salts, phenols, and sulphides
from a former explosives factory (Guardian, 16.9.77).

Cyanide was once considered the ultimate in poisons, the tiniest
amounts of which could cause instant death. Yet today it is commonly
to be found in large quantities being taken to dumps. Cyanide and a
host of other equally, if not more, toxic substances are the
by-products of industrial processes.

Arsenic wastes which had been buried in Minnesota thirty years
ago, recently contaminated water supplies, sending a number of people
to hospital. Even plutonium has been discovered on a municipal
landfill site in Germany. Re-use of a waste oil which happened to
contain a high concentration of dioxin, a million times more potent
than thalidomide, killed 60 horses, numerous other livestock, and
affected ten people in Missouri.

Apart from these examples, numerous other accidents have occurred
either on waste tips or during transit. One tanker arrived at a site
in Essex minus its load which had escaped through a faulty valve.
Several tankers have required the assistance of the fire brigade
following runaway pressure rises. Several major fires on waste
disposal sites have posed serious hazards to local residents, not
only from the atmospheric dispersion of combustion products, but also
from pyrolysis products, notably phenols, gaining access to public
water sources.

What has been done to safeguard the population from these dangers?
Not very much. A recent article in New Scientist (15.7.77) is
very critical of the inadequate laws and lack of controls. It
explains, too, that much of the information needed for an objective
assessment of the situation is unobtainable “mainly because of the
jealous way in which both government and industry guard their secrets
about the production and disposal of waste.” There seems more
concern to protect the manufacturers than to protect public health!

Cyanide

The Deposit of Poisonous Wastes Act was introduced in 1972
following publicity and public concern at the irresponsible dumping
of cyanide wastes in the early 1970s. The New Scientist points
out, however, that:

“The legislation, and the public feeling at the time,
produced major changes, not in the methods of disposal but rather in
the availability of disposal sites ... with the result that toxic
waste was channelled into a much smaller number of sites. For
example, the intake of toxic wastes to the Pitsea site in Essex
increased by a factor of eight in the three years following the 1972 act.”

The Health and Safety at Work and the Control of Pollution Acts
both appeared on the statute book in 1974. But, as the New
Scientist points out:

“... unfortunately, the grim financial climate in local
government at present mitigates against anything other than very
modest expenditures ... Hence in some counties, particularly more
rural ones that do not see themselves as having much of a toxic waste
problem, the control staff is minimal and policing of actual deposits
is non-existent. In these circumstances it requires no great flight
of fancy to imagine the likely reaction of an unscrupulous individual
or company with a tanker full of ‘something rather nasty’ to get
rid of.”

The article correctly concludes that the legislation, national and
European, does not provide sufficient protection.

“All these legislative innovations are examples of
remedies being sought at the wrong interface ... Legislation so far
has only an incidental effect on the volume and unpleasantness of the
waste itself. The legislature would be rewarded with more success if
it directed attention to the point of generation of waste.”

The experience of the workers trying to make use of the
legislation, whether it be Health and Safety at Work, Equal Pay, or
Employment Protection, is that employers always manage to find
loopholes, or prefer to ignore the law and risk fines, usually not
very great ones at that. Certainly, as far as health and safety
considerations go, and that includes waste disposal, any additional
expenditure on the part of the employer will cut into his profits.
Even the government’s own departments cannot implement health and
safety because of the cuts.

We must of course, as trade union representatives, make full use
of existing laws in our members’ interests to improve working
conditions, and the environment. We should also support any moves to
strengthen these laws to our advantage. But we need to go further
than this.

We should demand the tightest control and supervision of toxic
waste disposal. We should insist on the closest scrutiny by local
working class representatives, and by labour movement experts, of all
plans for new industry. No processes should be permitted unless
adequate safety is ensured and all waste products disposed of without
danger to the health of present or future generations.